BCAA

Summer 2013

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population exploded from 600 to 10,000 in 1942 when the Northern Alberta Railway terminus became the shipping hub for the highway's construction. With more than 18,000 residents, it is now the largest city on the B.C. section of the Alaska Highway. Mile 300 (DAY 4) Fort Nelson, Pop: 5,910 Founded as a fur-trading post in 1805, the town is now the nexus of a thriving gas and oil industry and a growing hub for adventure travel. Our destination, though, is more intriguing: the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum and a meeting with its founder and curator, 79-year-old Marl Brown, who arrived here from Alberta in 1957 as a mechanic for the Royal Canadian Army. With his long, grey hair and Rip Van Winkle beard, Brown is one of Fort Nelson's most beloved citizens and he fits right in with the museum's eccentric inventory, which includes the Hudson Bay Company Factor's House, trapper's cabin, a 6.8-tonne BC Hydro crankshaft, antique tools, appliances and stuffed albino moose. But the heart of the collection is Marl's stash of vintage vehicles, including five Model-T Fords, all of which he lovingly maintains in working order and drives on occasion. In 2008, for instance, to mark the 100th 32 W e s t w o r l d p28-32-49_Alaska.indd 32 >> birthday of his 1908 Buick-McLaughlin, he and wife Mavis, along with co-pilot Bill McLeod, drove the jalopy from Fort Nelson to Whitehorse and back, a 1,988-kilometre round trip accomplished without seat belts, air bags or a roof (the headlights were two hand-lit acetylene torches; a side-mounted kerosene lamp added nighttime visibility). In fact, Brown used the same car in 2010, when chosen to carry the Olympic Torch to light the cauldron for the Fort Nelson community celebration. Mile 47 St. John, Pop: 18,000 Established in 1794 as a trading post, St. John is the oldest non-native settlement in B.C. Back then it had a total population of 12 people. But World War II had a seismic effect on this farming community, and its Mile 0 Dawson Creek, POP: 12,475 Much of Dawson Creek's identity is tied up in its designation as Mile Zero. The railway depot has been transformed into a museum and preserved as it looked in 1942, the downtown alleys are adorned with murals commemorating scenes of the highway's construction, the town's newest attraction – an interactive museum at Alaska Highway House – features a fine PBS documentary on the same theme. And, of course, a "Mile 0" cairn set near the railway depot marks the actual start of the highway. Meanwhile, another, newer, "Mile 0" pillar topped with the flags of Canada, B.C. and the U.S. has been erected a block away in the middle of a four-way, presumably to draw tourists into the downtown core. And that's where we obligingly dash between traffic for Continued on page 49 Kerry Banks photo safaris and guided fishing trips into the remote northern Rockies on offer must wait for another time. Summer 2013 13-04-26 10:56 AM

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